20 years of the New Pornographers' Mass Romantic

When history is written about the New Pornographers’ 2000 debut Mass Romantic, it usually revolves some incredulity: how did this happen?!

How did this band that wasn’t supposed to be a real band become, for the next decade and beyond, one of the leading lights of Canadian music and the broader international indie rock scene in general? How did this many talented people with parallel careers continue to be a functioning band? How did this album on a tiny Canadian indie make such an impact?

I don’t buy any of that. Everything about Mass Romantic’s success makes total sense, for one simple reason. It was too good to fail.

This was a new band, but not new players. Most were closer to 30 than 20; the two principal architects were (gasp) over 30. There was a decade of experience, friendships and overlapping circumstances that brought that group of people together to create a pop masterpiece. Lots of things could have gone wrong along the way, and certainly afterwards. 

But there is an air of inevitability around Mass Romantic. This was a record that had to happen, and it had to happen with these people. And because it did, it ushered in a new era of possibility in Canadian music. There’s a reason that Kevin Drew, when applying for a grant very early on in Broken Social Scene’s career, described his project as “Ontario’s version of the New Pornographers.”

The first New Pornographers rehearsal took place in 1997. Carl Newman, who worked at Scratch Records and already had two bands on the go—the arch Zumpano, signed to Sub Pop, and the grungy, bombastic Superconductor, a favourite of Guided by Voices—invited a group of friends and acquaintances to form what Western Canadians call a “fuck band,” effectively a social club that might play the occasional gig. Newman claims he had no grand designs, but take a look at who got the invite.

Neko Case grew up in Tacoma, Washington, where she played drums and sang in a band called the Propanes. She was such a local light in the scene, known for go-go dancing at other band’s gigs, that local Sub Pop band Girl Trouble wrote a song about her called “Neko Loves Rock’n’Roll.” Tacoma was a popular destination for Vancouver punk bands, which is how she met Dave Carswell of the Smugglers. She moved to Vancouver in the early 90s to go to art school, temporarily joining Cub as a touring drummer. She then co-founded a punk band called Maow, who recorded early demos with Carswell and John Collins.

Collins played in the Evaporators, a long-running band fronted by Nardwuar the Human Serviette (at that point still primarily a CITR DJ, with little profile outside Vancouver). He also subbed in with Superconductor on occasion. He and Carswell were working on the second record by Dan Bejar, who called himself Destroyer. Both Collins and Bejar were also at that first New Pornographers rehearsal, along with keyboardist Blaine Thurier, a close friend of Newman’s, and drummer Fisher Rose, a friend of Bejar’s.

Their first gig was at a vintage clothing store, the Good Jacket. A few other gigs followed over the course of the next year, and a four-song demo was cut, with two songs by Bejar and two by Newman: “Execution Day,” “Breaking the Law,” “Mystery Hours” and something called “Letter From an Occupant.” The demo was sent to Sub Pop, who ignored it. It was sent to Matador, who rejected it (though A&R rep Nils Bernstein was a big fan). Then “Letter From an Occupant” was selected to be on a compilation put out by Mint Records in April 2000, curated by the Good Jacket, called Vancouver Special. (The album also featured an early version of Black Mountain, called Jerk With a Bomb, and an early version of the Organ, called Full Sketch.) The comp got a lot of attention from campus radio, but the New Pornographers track was far and away the standout.

An opening one-note guitar riff doesn’t necessarily sound promising, until Case starts singing and the drums drop out to just a four-on-the-floor bass drum and fills. The chord progression follows a classic '50s pop pattern of I-VI-IV (the same pattern as Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up,” incidentally, although totally different rhythm and feel). The melody is instantly catchy, and Case’s delivery—Newman instructed her to “sing like a robot,” with Shocking Blue’s Mariska Veres as a reference point—is instantly compelling. Then the pre-chorus hits (hanging on just the IV and V), Case holds longer notes, and the song opens up wide. The chorus itself is wordless, impossibly high ooos sung by Newman, an insanely catchy hook in a song already full of them. 

But wait! There’s more. The punchy first bridge finds Case hollering, “WHERE HAVE ALL SENSATIONS GONE?” followed by Beach Boys in a blender, unintelligible male vocals muttering about something or another, perhaps cowering in the presence of Case. Then another chorus and a monstrous second bridge, a cacophony of collapsing drums, and what sounds like an insect crawling over the strings of the lead guitar part, while Neko repeats “the song, the song, the song has shaken me” like a mantra. It sure as fuck has.

But what the hell is this song about? What is a “letter from an occupant”? Why will “the eventual downfall” be “a bill from a restaurant”? Is this all just a shower of “yeahs” and “whatevers”? These questions dogged me for years, as I attempted, poorly, to sing this song at the top of my lungs. Not only do I not have the range (uh, who does?) but the album had no lyric sheet and I sure as hell couldn’t figure them out apart from random phrases. Turns out some of the actual lyrics are: “The tune you'll be humming forever / All the words are replaced and wrong.” Huh.

The title phrase (“ ‘For the love of God,’ you said, ‘not a letter from an occupant’ ”) is paraphrased from something Newman heard a landlord say once. There is definitely a power dynamic at play, the lyrics a litany of disappointments: “What the hell have the 70s brought me?” “Where have all sensations gone?” “I’ve cried five rivers on the way here / which one will you skate away on?” That last one is a brilliant twist on a line from Joni Mitchell’s Blue, which makes me think the whole song is a jaded GenXer’s complaint to a bewildered Boomer landlord who fails to grasp the reality of economic anxiety. Or something.

The lyrics were beside the point, though: with a melody like that, with a vocal performance like that, with a band performance like that, with production like that--does it matter what the song is about? Countless examples from pop music history would suggest it doesn’t.

Obviously intrigued by that one song, Mint Records asked for more material, and the rest of Mass Romantic was the result. Recorded by Collins and Carswell, and with drummer Kurt Dahle replacing a missing Fisher, the album was released seven months after Vancouver Special. 

Newman has often said that he felt immense pressure to live up to not just the single, but to other work by people in his own band. In February 2000, Neko Case released her second solo album, Furnace Room Lullaby, featuring an all-star cast of Canadian indie rockers and alt-country players, not to mention amazing songs and, of course, the arrival of a major vocalist and serious artist. A few months later, Destroyer put out Thief, a record that was leaps and bounds ahead of anything Bejar had done before, and he too was getting noticed in international underground circles. Newman knew he had to make a record at least as good as those two. By that November, he had.



If there was any concern about living up to “Letter From an Occupant,” the opening title track put that to rest. It opens with a descending riff played on a tinny keyboard and slashing guitar chords, set to a clipped shuffle. Once again, Neko takes the lead, with multiple harmonies joining her at the end of each line. The bridge has intricately layered Beach Boys harmonies (no blender this time) for eight glorious bars, reappearing again before the coda (again, no shortage of hooks here), which has a different descending riff while first Newman and then a chorus of voices sing about “this boy’s life among the electrical lights.” With that, you can hear floodlights being turned on, the music nerd universe’s attention suddenly directed toward this ragtag group of Vancouverites who, after a decade in the trenches, are more than ready for prime time.

There was no shortage of ambition. During recording, there were two key reference points: one was Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea; the other was the dense pop symphonic concoctions of ABBA. Everything needed to be over the top. So much of Mass Romantic sounds like pent-up teenage energy, of people who’ve been waiting in the wings for too long and finally get a chance to shine. Maybe they were nerds too smart for their own good, maybe they were weirdos never accepted by cool kids, maybe they were not only Canadians (which no one in the world cares about) but Western Canadians (which no one east of Thunder Bay cares about) and goddammit, they were going to set off fireworks that could be seen far beyond Rocky Mountains and national borders.

And so the music here demands to be played loud, full of big riffs, fuzzy guitars, layered harmonies, piano parts that never miss a chance to glissando, ugly synths that sound like creaking doors, galloping drums, saxophones (anathema in the zeitgeist at the time) and choruses revolving around phrases like “salvation holdout central.” Then there’s “Mystery Hours,” a song of constant bluster, where the verse chord progression sounds like trying to maintain balance during a log rolling competition, until the chorus repeatedly pummels you over the head while Newman threatens to sing way out of his range and yet gets there every time.

That song is followed by Bejar’s “Jackie,” a respite at a slower tempo, featuring these incredible opening lines: “Jackie, you yourself said it best when you said / ‘There's been a break in the continuum / the United States used to be lots of fun...’ " To hear that line in a pop song in the same month that a contested presidential election was galvanizing America was a weird, seemingly prescient thrill at the time (Haha, end of empire! Take that, exceptionalists!)—except that it can now be argued that the outcome of that (actually stolen?) election started a 20-year-old march toward what now looks like a looming civil war. A break in the continuum, indeed. Oh yeah, and there are also songs on here titled “Fake Headlines” and “Centre for Holy Wars.” So there’s that. Does hope still grow “greener than grass stains” these days? I don’t know, I mean, grass stains are usually more dirt brown than green anyway. I digress.

The album was a hit right out of the gate, exceeding any expectations in terms of sales and press. Someone told Newman after a gig at a Manhattan club that, “Canada is cool now. Because of you guys and Peaches.” It was picked up by Matador in 2001. More great albums followed. They toured the world.

Part of the initial appeal to international media was patronizing, to say the least: “How did a band this good come from Canada?” (It’s not our fault you didn’t pay attention, you Canuckophobic fuckers!) When it came out in November 2000, Mass Romantic ended a year that also brought us the Weakerthans’ Left and Leaving, the Dears’ End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, the Be Good Tanyas’ Blue Horse, Kid Koala’s Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Godspeed You Black Emperor’s Lift Your Skinny Fists, Tegan and Sara’s This Business of Art: lots of wheels in motion there for the explosion that followed shortly thereafter. (Yes, I'm writing a book, about this and more.)

One could easily argue that there is no Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire without Mass Romantic, made by the first-ever Canadian band to erroneously be called either a "collective" or a "supergroup," a trend that plagued others in their wake. The question was no longer, “How did this come from Canada?” It became, “How come there are so many great Canadian acts right now?”

The band is still going strong today, even though Case and Bejar are now only tangentially involved in touring. (Bejar actually quit right after Mass Romantic came out, though he showed up for the occasional gig and continued to contribute a couple of songs per album until 2014. Todd Francey joined in 2000; Kathryn Calder in 2005; Dahle left a few years ago, replaced by Joe Seiders. Auxiliary players have come and gone.) Their 2019 album was one of their best (and, sadly, highly underrated). The New Pornographers’ story is far from over.

There were loose plans to celebrate the anniversary with some shows in 2020. Even Bejar was in. Then, of course, suddenly no one had any plans at all. All we can do now is turn it up, annoy the neighbours, do some air drumming, sing really terribly, and hail the New Pornography that got us here.

The songs are still shaking me.

2020 Polaris Music Prize shortlist, day 2: Jessie Reyez, Pantayo

My annual five-part look at the shortlist examines two records a day, plus two personal picks from the qualifying period, and this year—as the prize gets older and still skews young—I’m including one veteran artist each day whose latest work risks getting lost in the shuffle.


This year we’re going in reverse alphabetical order, because, hey, everything else about 2020 is upside down.


The winner this year will be announced on Monday, October 19 in a televised ceremony featuring 10 commissioned short films, airing on CBC Gem, YouTube and social media.


Day 1, looking at Witch Prophet and U.S. Girls, is here.


Day 2:

Jessie Reyez – Before Love Came to Kill Us (FMLY / Universal)

The album: The only superstar on this list, Reyez has also been a critical favourite since her debut EP, for obvious reasons: her singing voice, her rap flow, and her charismatic audacity. This is her first full-length, and it comes with enormous expectations.

Nobody cares what I think of Jessie Reyez, and nor should they. For what it’s worth, I thought the Kiddo EP was one hell of an introduction, and she hasn’t topped it yet. Her breakout hit was “Figures,” which reappears here for no apparent reason, and most of the better songs here adhere to the same formula: ballads, often waltzes, in which Reyez has a tendency to over-emote and pull off the biggest aural pouts since Corey Hart. The title track works; “Worth Saving” is, uh, not. When she goes back to club tracks like “Dope,” they sound forced (exception: “Roof”). 

“Coffin” is an album highlight, a 6/8 bluesy ballad with one of Reyes’s finest vocal performances, until Eminem shows up to take a massive misogynist shit all over it. What the fuck is he doing here? She doesn’t need that prick. Her own machismo can be downright embarrassing: “If I blow your brains out, I could kiss it better.” Really? Some of the left turns work best of all, like “Intruders” and “I Do.” But what’s up with the atrocious autotune on “La Memoria”? It’s not like Reyez isn’t an amazing singer (see: “Love in the Dark”).

I’d love to love Before Love Came To Kill Us, but it’s all over the place, and not in a good way. I realize how patronizing and perhaps sexist it is to say about a successful artist like Reyez that she has yet to come into her own, but I’m still waiting for her to deliver a great album. Her debut full-length is not it. 

The chances: Fair. On an entirely personal note, this album came out the week of the lockdown, and it was absolutely not the kind of music I wanted to hear at that point in time. The very first lyric is, “I should have fucked your friends”—wait, is that even possible anymore? But both this and the new album by noted misanthrope the Weeknd (released a week earlier) obviously had no problem finding their audience in the coming apocalypse. But I’ll admit that if I was in the jury room, I’d have a hard time giving this album a fair shake in 2020. It sounds like an odd time capsule from the Before Times.

Pantayo – s/t (Telephone Explosion)

The album: All critics—okay, the best ones—are suckers for something they haven’t heard before. We’re curious people (ideally). And it’s safe to say that few people, if anyone, in North America has heard a band like this, which combines traditional Filipino percussion with modern R&B and pop. Producer Alaska B (Yamantaka//Sonic Titan) ensures everything sounds rich, thick and totally pro: deep grooves over which the Moondog-ish metallophones and other kulintang percussion sparkle with life. If this were just a novel and evocative instrumental record, it would already succeed, but these women are also great singers: check out the sultry soul ballad “Desire,” which absolutely could and should be a pop hit. The brooding pulse of “V V V” is a 2020 anthem (“They lie / they will never tell the truth”). “Heto Na” and “Taranta” have some serious ESG vibes, while obviously sounding nothing like them. 

If the Polaris was awarded on originality alone, this would be a shoo-in. My only criticism is that there’s a bit of debut-itis; as good as this is, I’m pretty sure it’s only the beginning. But even if this is all we ever hear from Pantayo (and I have no reason to suspect this), it’s more than enough. I’m so happy this band exists, that this debut record got made the way it did, and that we’re talking about it on the Polaris shortlist.

Bandcamp link here. 

The chances: Good. It’s certainly as strong as the best albums on this list, and the underdog story might help them in the subconscious minds of jury members. Do not be remotely shocked if Pantayo wins this, putting them in a fine Polaris tradition of left-field winners.





The could’ve, should’ve beens:

Little Scream – Speed Queen (Dine Alone / Merge)

The album: Writing political pop music is one of the hardest tasks as a songwriter. It’s incredibly easy to fall flat on your face, deep in name-calling and juvenile call-outs. It’s also incredibly easy to be so incredibly vague as to be completely irrelevant. Little Scream’s Laurel Sprengelmeyer avoids all those pitfalls here. First of all, she clearly puts the music first: all these songs are sparkling pop constructions, with exemplary players; there’s a lot of Fleetwood Mac and Prince lurking between the layers. At least half this record sounds like a greatest-hits collection by a ’70s legend. What elevates Little Scream is her lyrical approach: on tracks like “Disco Ball” and “Privileged Child,” her characters “bear the dead weight of a dream,” living in late-stage capitalism, longing for a basic luxury like their own washing machine (the title track), dealing with post-decadence regret (“No More Saturday Nights”) now that the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been (“Dear Leader”). Sprengelmeyer writes vivid portraits with a universal ring, and the fact that she does so on top of such lush and glorious songs makes it all that much better.



Why it didn’t even make the long list: From what I can tell, this record got reviewed in Exclaim, had an article in the Montreal Gazette—and that’s about it. Radio silence. Why?! Musically, it’s not that far removed from U.S. Girls, and it’s just as intriguing lyrically, so it’s not like she’s out of step and out of time. Little Scream has been around a while; her 2011 debut made the long list, though she only surfaces every few years. As much as I love this record, I will admit that it was a bit of a grower. But once it clicked, I started playing it every day for a month. These hooks are deep. Nobody heard this record. Did you hear this record? Go listen to this fucking record. 

Lil Andy – All the Love Songs Lied to Us (independent)

The album: “All the love songs lied to us, except the one you’re hearing now.” I’m not in a mood to trust anyone these days, so I appreciate Lil Andy’s chutzpah and his honesty. I also appreciate what a phenomenal collection of songs he’s written, and I appreciate the ace players he gathered to play them, and I appreciate that he’s given me a reason to love a straight-up country record again, which is not something I’ve done in a long, long time (though the new Brandi Clark is pretty good, and I have to admit I haven’t spent a lot of time with the new Corb Lund). I’ve written before that Lil Andy sounds like what would’ve happened had Leonard Cohen stuck with the Buckskin Boys in his early Montreal days. Having followed Andy’s work for many, many years, I can confidently state this is the best thing he’s ever done.

Why it didn’t even longlist: It’s a country record from Montreal. Enough said. Do jurors hang out at the Wheel Club? I'm guessing no. Not a lot of roots-y music on the long list, outside of Andy Shauf, Joel Plaskett and William Prince. But: seriously? Jurors think longlister and fellow folkie Montrealer Leif Vollebekk is a better songwriter than Lil Andy? I bought a vinyl copy of this after accosting Andy in the Montreal metro system last winter. But you can just go listen to it here.




Veteran MIA:

New Pornographers – In the Morse Code of Brake Lights (Collected Works)

It's so easy to take this band for granted, 20 years in. I'll admit that I did that when this album came out in August 2019; I know the formula, I know what to expect. But it's a grower. Just as Carl Newman and company did on 2014's surprise shortlister Brill Bruisers, this record stands out as one of the best that anyone on here, including Neko Case, has ever been a part of. (FWIW, there's no Dan Bejar on here, though he co-wrote the single "Falling Down the Steps of Your Smile.") 

It marks the official debut of touring violinist Simi Stone, who adds welcome orchestration; there are also appearances by Vancouver string quartet Strength of Materials (who made a full-length collab with Ford Pier), who bring glorious colour. The keyboards and synths, handled entirely by Newman and Kathryn Calder, are rich and lovely, not unlike those heard on Newman's highly underrated 2012 solo album Shut Down the Streets. One of the biggest challenges this band has always faced has been balancing moods and textures, if only because they do big, dense, pop-rock songs so well. Here, tracks like the sparse "You Won't Need Those Where You're Going," "Opening Ceremony" or the slow, choral build of the bitter "Higher Beams," are album highlights that don't for a second distract from the sugar highs. 

This marks the first time the New Pornographers have failed to at least make a Polaris long list, which is a) good for Polaris, to make way for new blood, but b) underrates these vets at a time when they sound as good or better than they ever have. I'm sad I didn't get to see this record performed live. 

Tomorrow: Nehiyawak, Lido Pimienta

Pre-Polaris, day four: Tobias Jesso Jr., New Pornographers

The 10^th Polaris Music Prize gala is next Monday, Sept. 21, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of these 10 artists will get $50,000 and a gig with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2016. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the short list—or, in some cases, even the long list.

Day one is here; day two is here; day three is here. And a whole bunch of relatively unnecessary distractions are here and here.

Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon (Arts and Crafts)

The album:

  

From my April review:

  

The 1970s in California produced dozens of top-notch songwriters: some famous, some not-so-famous, many of which are rediscovered by subsequent generations, and revisited by young songwriters. The latest of the newbies is Tobias Jesso, Jr., a 29-year-old Vancouver native who retreated home after four years in L.A., only to write songs that suddenly got attention from the calibre of people he’d been trying to impress for years. So here we are, with a debut album of piano ballads for sad sacks on sunny days, produced by John Collins (New Pornographers, Destroyer), the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, and the man behind hits by Vampire Weekend and Haim (Ariel Rechtshaid), released by Broken Social Scene’s Arts and Crafts label.

  

I didn’t have much more to say about this album then, and I still don’t. It’s so featherweight that I can’t imagine anyone getting riled up and arguing passionately why it deserves $50,000. The first track is nice: “Can’t Stop Thinking About You”? Well, if “you” means Elliott Smith, then yes, I can’t stop thinking about how much I’d rather be listening to XO right now. The one about how “everyone lies in Hollywood” also strikes a chord: “I don’t know if I can make it / and I don’t know if I should.” Hey buddy, you said it.

OK, to be fair, Jesso obviously has talent, but this debut is super green. I have no idea what it’s doing here.

The chances: Non-existent.

New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers (Last Gang)

The album:

  

This was a shocker. Not because the New Pornographers aren’t a great band; they are. Not because this isn’t a great album; it’s one of their better ones (but definitely not their best). But I don’t recall any great critical outpouring greeting its release; being Canadians, we take bands like this for granted. “Oh right, that band with A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar and Neko Case and Kathryn Calder and Kurt Dahle one of Canada’s best producers on bass. Are they still around?” (Well, Dahle split after this record.)

The last album fans all agreed was fantastic was 2005’s Twin Cinema (I loved 2010’s Together, but it was pooh-poohed in most Brill Bruisers reviews), so maybe the 10-year gap renewed our collective appreciation for a solid Pornographers record—which this most definitely is. “Champions of Red Wine” is a total earworm that I had in my head most of last fall. Bejar’s “War on the East Coast” is easily one of his best melodies he’s written for this band (and there’s been quite a few). The keyboards of Blaine Thurier and Kathryn Calder (as heard on her fine 2015 solo release) are brought to the forefront, competing with the chugging guitars and sounding more modern than the new wave throwbacks of earlier albums. And, as has been the case on recent albums, the four- and five-part harmonies and shared lead vocals have supplanted the one-singer, one-song model that made this band seem like a bizarre variety show. The Bejar-Calder duet on “Born With a Sound” is sublime [update: I've since learned this is actually Black Mountain's Amber Webber, not Calder; I have no liner notes!], and unexpected (and rather Arcade Fire-ish; Calder [actually Webber] sounds a bit like Régine Chassagne here).

My August 2014 review is here.

The chances:

Zilch. Other than Feist’s 2012 win for Metals—an album I love intensely, but that got a lukewarm reception upon release, and was considered to be a curiosity from an artist ever-so-slightly past her prime—Polaris jurors aren’t usually the sentimental type. We’ve all grown up with this band. We still love this band. But can they still blow us away? Also: Vancouver. Don’t discount the central Canadian conspiracy that has clearly cast a curse on West Coast artists at Polaris.

Two of the should’ve, could’ve beens:

Terra Lightfoot – Every Time My Mind Runs Wild (Sonic Unyon)

The album:

Holy cow, what a barn-burner. This is the sound of an artist waking up and deciding to grab life by the balls and live every moment to the fullest. How often do you hear that?

  

My April review:

There’s lots to love about Hamiltonian Terra Lightfoot’s second album: her songwriting has improved tenfold; she’s got a roaring rock band behind her; she’s steeped in the most durable elements of classic rock, country and Americana, and her music is exactly what you (okay, me, at least) want to hear when you hit the bar on Friday night.  But records like that are a dime a dozen. Lightfoot has something else going for her. Everyone, it seems, loves a man who sings like a woman. And everyone loves a woman who dresses like one of the guys on stage. But what of the woman in a dress with a masculine—or, at the very least, androgynous—voice? It’s not just that Lightfoot has a lower range, it’s the timbre of her voice that sounds like no one else, male or female. She’s the Alison Moyet of Canadian roots rock. It’s what makes or breaks her appeal; it doesn’t leave anyone sitting on the fence, especially when she hangs onto notes at the climax of a chorus ("No Hurry"). Producer Gus Van Go (Whitehorse) pushes her to go big or go home; even the sparsely arranged ballads here (“NFB,” “Splinter”) don’t shy away from big, brassy moments—and she pulls it off every time.  That approach applies not just to her voice: this is Lightfoot putting all (or most) of her cards on the table. Opening with a rollicking electric waltz, she frontloads the album with rockers before branching out to tender folk songs or a 1950s 6/8 shuffle or two-step country. Every Time My Mind Runs Wild is brimming with confidence, a calling card for a young artist more than ready to make her mark.

  

Why it didn’t even make the long list:

  

Her debut album was barely noticed; this one came out in late April and word of mouth started spreading slowly—as did radio play. Come the summertime, she was the talk of festival season. Now that it’s September, it looks like Polaris voters really missed the boat. No matter—she’s already onward and upward, not looking back.

Tre Mission – Stigmata (Big Dada)

  

The album:

This Toronto MC and producer was one of the most exciting things I heard last year. His charisma and flow as an MC are solid and better than most, but it’s the production here that really stands out. Signed to Ninja Tune subsidiary Big Dada, his ties to British hip-hop, particularly its grime scene, run deep. For Tre Mission, grime is an excuse to blow open boundaries and create futuristic, next-level hip-hop that challenges any cutting-edge electronic artist. Of course, that can also be said of Drake and Kanye, for example, but for whatever reason this music resonates with me more: it’s much more animated, limber and playful than Drake, it’s more sparse, atmospheric and dub-influenced than Kanye. It shares plenty with my other favourite new Toronto MC/producer, Keita Juma, who got lost in this year’s discussion but whose new work I’m looking forward to. For a 23-year-old on his second album, Tre Mission is remarkably accomplished and fully formed. And in a singles-driven genre, Stigmata holds up from top to bottom. I can’t wait to hear what he does next: on his own, or producing other people, or whatever the hell he wants. And I hope to God Canada doesn’t sleep on it.

Why it didn’t make the short list:

Plenty—though not nearly enough—hip-hop records get suggested by the jury; a handful make the long list, and usually no more than one or two make the shortlist. There’s clearly some kind of glass ceiling. This year the biggest rap star in the world and a hip-hop legend both showed up to the Polaris party, which squeezes out smaller voices. One hip-hop fan I know thought this record sounded “too British”—not sure about that, but it is markedly different than most North American hip-hop.

New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers (Last Gang)

The New Pornographers once had a song called "Sing Me Spanish Techno." This is their first album that could actually be accused of doing so.

It’s not that the New Pornographers have gone EDM, exactly. But it’s not at all hard to imagine some Euro DJ taking these tracks and having a field day with them, creating club bangers in the process.

Lead songwriter A.C. Newman has always employed new wave synths in his power pop; on his most recent solo album, Shut Down the Streets, he populated his folkie singer/songwriter side with spacy keyboards seemingly borrowed from ’70s sci-fi soundtracks. Here, the synths sound borrowed from Tegan & Sara’s recent makeover (a duo who was produced by New Pornographer associates John Collins and Dave Carswell before they blew up as a pop act). Brill Bruisers has plenty of chugging, metronomic eighth-note guitar riffs and four-on-the-floor beats underscoring the baroque vocal arrangements and layered rock instrumentation.

Other than those cosmetics, Brill Bruisers continues to exploit the wealth of talent in this band: not just Newman’s songwriting but that of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, whose three songs here are the only ones, oddly enough, to feature an entirely incongruous harmonica, even on the ambient, beatless techno of Spidyr. Kathryn Calder, whose solo albums the world seems to be ignoring at their own peril, continues to carve out her own real estate in an already crowded band that happens to feature Neko Case as resident show-stealer.

That wealth of talent, however, also invites comparisons—and A.C. Newman, Case, Destroyer and Calder have all put out solo records in the last two years that tower over almost everything they’ve ever done. Imagine if you could successfully argue that solo albums by the four Beatles were better than The White Album and Abbey Road: in 2014, a new New Pornographers record has even more to live to than any one band’s discography. By that near-impossible standard, Brill Bruisers takes a back seat; on first impression, it would seem strength in numbers doesn’t necessarily apply this time out—more Travelling Wilburys than Beatles. Yet the glory of their combined vocals—which are distributed more evenly this time out, with the normally selfish Bejar even duetting with Calder—is still more than thrilling, and essential listening. (Aug. 28)

Download: “Champions of Red Wine,” “War on the East Coast,” “Wide Eyes”